Speed Saunders: The Grogan Case (Grogan's Run)

When last we left Speed Saunders in his conflict with the counterfeit ring, he'd

locked the print guy in the closet, 

Where I am sure he won't get hurt.
Assuming Speed remembers to get him out.

shot the gunsel who was sick of living in Grogan's shadow, 

"No, it wasn't me, it was GEORGE GLASS...!"

and started Dave Grogan on a merry chase we'll call Grogan's Run.

Keep staring at this panel.
Now.
Tell me, 
how long did it take you to realize that Grogan is vaulting over the fence BACKWARDS, in defiance of all physics?  Wouldn't think such a bulky guy would be an urban parkour expert.

Grogan's Run is a cleverer ploy than it might seem at first, since Speed always shadow-travels, tesseracts, skis, or uses the Speedmobile.  I'm not sure we have evidence Speed even knows how to WALK let alone run.  I'm sure he CAN, but he probably has to sing "Put One Foot In Front Of The Other" just to keep a steady pace;  The Shield he ain't.

"Gus"? Who the grawlixes is GUS?!?!

Wondering where the heck Grogan's Run leads to, since the hideout is blown?  It leads ourobourotically back to the beginning of the story:

Well, since it's a "stationary" store, no wonder he stayed put.

Not to be all judgey (since that Speed's job), but it seems like an odd time to pop in to buy cigarettes again.  Or maybe Grogan has guessed that Papa Bodega sicced Speed on him?  Hm.

OH. "Gus" is PAPA BODEGA.
That makes sense, then.

Phew! Luckily Speed managed to One-Step fast enough to stop Grogan from killing Gus!

...
Wait.
... Whut?

I... don't; I can't...

Gus is... THE HEAD OF THE COUNTERFEIT GANG?!

EVERYONE SHOOTS EVERYONE ELSE

Speedslain THIS, Saunders!

No.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

WHY DOES NO ONE HAVE DOOR LOCKS?!

I... have read a lot of Speed Saunders stories.

I have seen goldfish marked with morse code, a little boy killed three different ways, people assassinated by surrealist art installations, random Persian jewels dropped at Speed's dinner table, stomach pumping, skiing scarecrows, crescent dresses, French maids who overshare, ambiguously monogrammed hand-kerchiefs, cross-dressing emerald thieves, (extra-)poisonous cigarettes, thudding sickening thumps, 45 caliber Chinese curtains, and things I've never ever shared with you, like killer bees, voodoo murders, exploding bowling balls, hypnotized snakes, and woolly mammoths.

But, no matter how bizarre, I don't think any of those stories can outdo the pure, raw illogicality of this mundane counterfeiting story.

LET'S RECAP:

These are the opening panels of The Grogan Case. It was only five pages ago, mind you.

If Gus is the head of the counterfeiting ring then...

why is Grogan trying to give him a counterfeit bill?

Why are they pretending they don't know each other?

Why is Gus surprised at this bill?

FOR WHOM ARE THEY PUTTING ON THIS TRANSQUARTOMURALISTIC CHARADE, OTHER THAN US, THE READERS, OF WHOM THEY CANNOT BE AWARE?!?!?!

No, Speed Saunders. No, Fred Guardineer. I love you both, but...you have crossed a line this time.

Oh, and it's spelled "STATIONERY"!

The Glass of Poison, Part 2: Seeing The Body (a.k.a. Death In The Living Room)

Following her dramatic introduction, Betty The Secretery (sic) accompanies Speed Saunders downstairs as he proceeds to ace-investigate Death In The Living Room, which I'm sure Agatha Christie would agree would have been a much better title for this story.  

First, they See The Body.

And what a body it is! Va-va-va-DOOM!

The world would be a better place if we all just admitted that one caption like "In the living room below lies - DEATH!" is worth ten thousand pictures of people shooting energy beams from their body parts.

Not wanting to waste time calling a doctor (since it's obviously too late to have anyone's stomach pumped, which is the only reason Speed ever calls a doctor), Speeds then uses his Face of Judgement It's one of the abilities that can arise from enough reading of Detective Comics well after midnight.

"Possibly while also being tickled to accelerate oxygen loss, her voluptuous bodily writhing in an unnatural and overwhelming conjunction of pain and pleasure which brought her to unknown heights of ecstasy even as it plummeted her in darkness. Perhaps."

Sometimes the role of a Useful Female Informant is to receive information rather than give it. Such is the case with Betty The Secretery (sic), who makes sure to destroy any notes CONTAINING the information afterwards, as is her professional responsibility.

"The cause of her poisoning? Well ... poison, ma'am. Perhaps at the hands of GYPSIES. Where were YOU at the time of the murder, and how do you know when that was unless YOU killed her?"

"Digitalis prussic acid, veratrim (sic) viride, and any number of other poisons."  So just.... any poison then.  "She may have eaten an undercooked roast scorpion in Chinatown, where I frequently encounter Oriental Artifacts. Perhaps."

It happens, you know.

Speed, perhaps realizing that this case is insufficiently bizarre for him or hoping to wrap things up before his morning breakfast reservation at a Chinatown roast scorpion restaurant, decides to lurch toward the surreal by suddenly accusing some nearby stemware of being the murderer.

I'm surprised it doesn't shatter at the undoubtedly rapid vibration of the Finger of Judgement.

Betty now has to make a dumb comment that allows for Speed to explain his behavior to the readers (as if readers have ANY expectation of understanding Speed's behavior).

"There may be fingerprints, which, fortunately, I, as an Ace Investigator, am capable of SMELLING."

Look, Betty; Speed's usual outfit is that puce Glenurquhart Estate Check jacket with an orange trilby. "How Funny He Looks" is NOT one of Speed's concerns.  Realizing that Betty is clearly too stupid to appreciate his methodologies he arranges from some minor authorities to serve as a proper audience to his ace-investigation skills.

One of the most charming aspects of the Saunderverse, which I've never mentioned before, is that it's FULL OF FLOWERS.  Really, it must be a LOVELY place to live until you're murdered.

Speed, who is, of course, on a first name basis with the Homicide Division, orders a few Boys and a Man to Take A Chemical Report, whatever that means.  Reminder: the "Ace" in Ace Investigator is isn't an adjective of quality; it's a RANK, because Speed automatically outranks any authority figure he encounters. It saves time figuring out who's in charge,  because it's ALWAYS Speed.

Back off, Betty; you don't rank a fourth-wall address. Leave transquartomuralism to the pros.  Nobody at a crime scene needs the opinion of a bare-shouldered gypsy with hickies, unless that crime was a lock-picking.

Betty, whose rich and layered portrayal allows her role to evolve with each panel, now serves as a more jaded and promiscuous Aqualad, telling us What The Inevitable Negative Outcome Will Be and How Not Even Aquaman Can Save The Day.

And Aquaman probably could not because Aquaman is only superhuman.  But this is SPEED SAUNDERS we're talking about here...

The Killers of Kurdistan, Part 2: Bachelor Traveling Companions

When last we met, Eastern Lore Expert Mr. Trelawney was about to share his knowledge of the Killers of Kurdistan with Speed Saunders, Ace Investigator. which he gained on a trip with his Bachelor Traveling Companion:

BWAAHAHAHAHAA

Don't get me wrong, I am not laughing because he's dead; I'm laughing because, being 1939, this is as clearly as the writer can permissibly signal that this is Trelawney's young lover.  

Apparently I'm not the only one who thought he had a cute tongue.

Sigh; always check the Gay Travel Advisory, Mr. Trelawney.

Heh, I saw THIS movie; part of Cazzo Film's "Arab marketplace" series.

Pictured: "fun"

"See the sights" INDEED.  Anyway, as is SO often the case, the "sights" turn out to be bit more than our Bachelor Traveling Companions bargained for. In fact, it turns out to be:

Won't find THAT in your tour book.

Yes, against all reason, but because the backstory demands, Trelawney and boy-toy Tom blunder into the local killers' union, into which ...

"So, anyway, now that Tom's gone, I don't have anyone to ... travel with, so I was wondering..."

they accidentally find themselves inducted.

Yeah, I don't quite get it, either.  And I've seen Eli Roth's Hostel (I & II).  Had I been they, I immediately would have stabbed the idiot who led me there.  Anyway, the result is that they are now marked for death by the Killers of Kurdistan, who must have gone to a GREAT deal of trouble to track them down to be killed, rather than just, you know, rescind their memberships at a committee of the whole.  This is what happens in societies that lack Robert's Rules of Order.

Naturally, after this conversation Speed and Trelawney return immediately to the party.  Speed may be a star, but he still only gets about six pages, so events must proceed, including the inevitable Good Guy dances with Bad Gal scene.

"I'll begin by dancing with the obvious femme fatale; that usually accelerates the action."

Rhett Croissante tries to draw Speed away from the action.

"You know where it's not hot, toots? The river where I saw a cute-tongued corpse pulled from last night; he could have used a breath of air, but he'd been strangled to death. Know anything about it...?

But the action intrudes.

Well, he DID say "shoot me when this is over"...

I'm uncertain whether Speed tesseracted them outside for some fresh air and they are on the other side of the window glass or it's just raining in the house. Regardless, the finger of fate pulls the trigger of doom on the back of Trelawney.

"SPEED! I-- I lo--love--y-UGGHN!"

Immediately, Speed's alpha-authority powers kick into high gear and he shatters the fourth wall with their force.

Even Aquaman wets himself a little when Speed yells commands but, of course, no one ever notices.

Tomorrow: Speed and Adolf Hitler join forces to solve the case.

Doll Man versus a Box of Candy, Part 1

Doll Man and his sidekick, Death, hide themselves in a box of candy!  This story has no proper title so we get to pick our own: I'm leaning toward "Bon Bon Voyage" or "A Box of Bomb Bombs!"

Maybe it's not Death.  Maybe (the) Doll Man is just throwing one of his 'flesh-optional' parties.

Doll Man's gal pal received an unsolicited parcel: a box of CHOCOLATES!

"It could be a BOMB! Let's stand way back here against the wall, just in case!"

If the mailman made a mistake, as Martha asserts below, the package must have the correct address on it, and it would be a simple matter to take it there or hand it back to the mailman the next day.  But Golden Age stories are not premised on simple matters.  And so...

Being the crazy person who drank an untested shrink formula that strains the brain, Doll Man starts EATING the chocolate, even though the chocolates belong to someone else AND could actually be BOMBS. You'd think he'd know that, living in a comic book as he does.

Actually, Martha, if you were he, you obviously WOULD eat it.

Of course, opening (and eating) a package not addressed to you is a federal crime, but that's not the kind of thing that stops a man who regularly finds any excuse to shrink to six inches and run around in his underwear and pick on people 1728 times his size.

Naturally because this is Doll Man,  the very piece of candy he so daintily begins to consume in multiple bites turns out to contain a sabotage plot.

"I'd better investigate!" 
Doll Man is kind of guy who says, "But I digress...!"

So, I ask you to think about how you safely and undetectably insert a sabotage plot inside a bon bon, which, unlike a fortune cookie, is full of messy goo.  Don't tell me; just think about it. THEN think about WHY you would do that; no pressure, since there is no answer.

As Gal Pal Martha steadies herself against the idiosyncratic perspective of the room, Doll Man ponders an uncharacteristically sane approach, from which she quickly dissuades him through the persuasive power of transquartomuralism.

One of the challenges of Doll Man stories is that you can never tell whether Doll Man is changing size or its just the idiosyncratic perspective.

Like any Golden Age hero, Doll Man is eager to horribly complicate the situation with a simple plan.

"You can start by helping me escape this Ames Room, which is causing the illusion that I'm 8-10 foot tall."

Doll Man's simple plan has Martha return the apparently unopened box of candy to the world's loneliest Post Office, which is the normal decent thing they should have done in the first place.

In Doll Man's city, forced perspective = foreshadowing.

I'm not really sure how the "Post Office" works, because, like you, I live in the future, where we use teleportation and 3D printing instead.  I guess the package has no return address, but the P.O. keeps records that say "Mr. Roberts, 555-1323; box of edible sabotage plans, contact if undeliverable"?  Sure, Golden Age, why not?

Oh, wait, did Mr. Roberts send the package or was he its intended recipient?  "I better investigate!"  

Here's where this simple plan gets complicated.  Mr. Roberts brings the candy back to a Mr. Gruber's office, which is, apparently, in the Ukiyo-e building for exporters of Japanese perspective, where everyone within must cling to furniture to keep from being hurtled off-panel by sudden shifts in viewpoint.

Has the yellow-suited man been poisoned with Doll Man's shrinking pill? Why is he standing on a banker's box?  Is the blue-suited man actually that much taller or is he a victim of forced perspective?  Why does he order everyone else to take a piece of candy but then winds up getting the sabotage piece himself? All the really good mysteries in Doll Man stories remain unexplored.

So,  it seems the box of candy isn't a means for conveying crime plans, so much as a means for deciding who does the crime. Suddenly the Octo-Alphabet Board and the Planetary Chance Machine don't seem so stupid, do they?

Yeah; no, they still do.

Next time you play a boardgame, don't roll to see who goes first. Wouldn't it be more exciting to pull out a Whitman's Sampler and say, "The first-player token is in ONE of these chocolates; start eating."

But I digress! As the yellow-suited man continues to shrink and the brown-suited man eats all the rest of the chocolate (because crime is a high-calorie undertaking), they discover the amazing figure of The Doll Man hidden in the box of candy (which I have to assume had some airholes punched in it).

I think the Square-Cube Law means that Doll Man only weights about 2 ounces so Adolf has a very finely calibrated sense of what chocolate boxes weigh.

And that's when the Doll Man–style whupping begins.

For a guy who stands on banker's boxes in order to come up to the shoulders of his colleagues, yellow-suit has a lot of stones to sass a guy who's lifting a table the relative size of a White Castle.

So, after they are all unconscious, Doll Man does the sensible thing and, having incapacitated the would-be saboteurs, calls the authorities.

LOL, you didn't fall for that, did you? This is the Golden Age; this is The Doll Man, whose brain is chemically unbalanced! Naturally, while he has the opportunity, he does the least sane thing and crawls INSIDE THEIR BOMB.

"Hm. A tiny man with super-strength jumped out of a box of chocolates and pummeled us senseless. But now he's gone so, I'm going to pretend there was an earthquake and just proceed as planned!"

After all, what could possibly go wrong...?

The First Metatextual Hero (?)...

You probably barely know who Cyril "Speed" Saunders is, if at all.

He's one of the thousands of mostly generic "adventurers" from the Golden Age of DC comics, before the superheroes took over.  Created in 1937, he pre-dates Batman & Superman.  In modern times, he occasionally figures as a supporting character in JSA-related stories; he was posited as Hawkgirl's grandfather in Robinson & Goyer's JSA and later as her uncle (or grand-uncle) in the Palmiotti & Grey run on Hawkman.

From JSA #2 (1999)

Was there a Crisis in between these two storylines to blame the change on? 

Eh; probably.

From Hawkman #2 (2002).

But originally he was (like David S. Pumpkins) his own thing.

From Detective #1, if you can imagine such a thing.

At first he was clearly part of 'the River Patrol' (which was apparently part of the FBI? Sure, okay).  But no river is mighty enough to contain the awesomeness of Speed Saunders, so pretty quickly that was generalized into being a vague 'agent' or 'investigator' who pretty much stuck his nose in wherever he wanted.

Later retcons had him part of the O.S.S. (because comics just loves the O.S.S.), but the truth is his authority came FROM BEING SPEED SAUNDERS.

When Speed Saunders shows up (which is always when the story begins because no story REALLY begins until Speed Saunders shows up), he demands to know what's up and no matter who you are, you tell him, unhesitatingly, and THEN you ask him how HE would like to proceed.

Later he sold his used car to Bruce Wayne. 
THAT'S how cool Speed Saunders was.

EVERONE always deferred to Speed's vague authority. It's a great power; he's the Aquaman of Ace Investigators.  I'd love to see him brought back in that capacity, with his authority always unquestioned and rooted in universal societal respect (for no reason that we ever get a clue about).

INSTANTLY in charge of any situation he happens upon. Before there was "I'm Batman", there was "I'm Speed Saunders".

So, I should haven't been surprised to discover that he's probably the first hero with the power of metatextuality.

"The Bat-Man, eh? Seems rather too overly dramatic to be taken seriously, I should think..."

His name is Speed Saunders, and don't you forget it.